THIS day to me was a medley of brilliant impressions. I was a
great novelty among these exclusive Court ladies, brought up
rigidly apart from foreign life and customs, and I was subjected to
a rapid fire of questions. I soon found that these women were the
same as others the world over in point of curiosity and love of
gossip. The fourth daughter of Prince Ching (Sze Gurgur), a young
widow and a strikingly handsome woman, spoke to me. "Were you
brought up in Europe and educated?" she asked. "I am told that when
people go to that country and drink the water there, they quickly
forget their own country. Did you really study to acquire all those
languages or was it drinking the water that gave them to you?" I
mentioned that I met her brother, Prince Tsai Chen, in Paris on his
way to London for the coronation of King Edward, and that we should
have liked to have gone also, as my father had a special
invitation, but were prevented from doing so by his urgent duties
in Paris in settling the Yunnan question, to which the Princess
replied: "Is there a king in England? I had thought that our
Empress Dowager was Queen of the world." Her sister, wife of the
brother of the Young Empress, a most intelligent, quiet and
dignified lady, stood by smiling and listening to the eager
questions. After numerous questions had been asked the Young
Empress finally said: "How ignorant you are. I know that each
country has its ruler and that some countries are republics. The
United States is a republic and very friendly toward us, but I am
sorry that such a common class of people go there, as they will
think we are all the same. What I should like to see is some of our
good Manchu people go, as then they would see what we really are."
She afterwards told me she had been reading a history of the
different countries, which had been translated into Chinese, and
she seemed to be very well informed.

After the Audience was over, Her Majesty called us out from
behind the screen and told us to go with her to see the theatre.
She said, as it was such a beautiful day, she preferred to walk, so
we started, walking a little behind her, as is the custom. Along
the way she pointed out from time to time different places and
things that were her particular favorites, and as she had to keep
turning around all the time, she finally told us to come and walk
alongside of her. This, as I afterwards found out, was a great
condescension on her part and a thing that she very seldom ever
did. She, like everybody else, had her pets and hobbies, such as
flowers, trees, plants, dogs, horses, etc., and there was one dog
in particular that was her favorite pet. This dog was with Her
Majesty always and followed her wherever she went, and a more
homely dog I never saw. It had absolutely nothing to recommend it
in any way. Her Majesty thought it beautiful, and called it Shui Ta
(Sea Otter).

A short distance from the Audience Hall we came to a large
courtyard. On each side of this courtyard were two immense baskets
fifteen feet in height, built of natural logs and literally covered
with purple wisteria. They were simply gorgeous and great favorites
of Her Majesty. She was always very proud of them when in bloom and
took great delight in showing them to the people.

From this courtyard we entered a sort of passageway which ran
along the sides of a big hill and led directly to the theatre,
where we soon arrived. This theatre is quite unlike anything that
you can imagine. It is built around the four sides of an open
courtyard, each side being separate and distinct. The building has
five stories. It is entirely open on the front and has two stages,
one above the other. The three top stories are used for holding the
drops and for store rooms. The stage on the first floor is of the
ordinary kind; but that on the second floor is built to represent a
temple and used when playing religious plays, of which Her Majesty
was very fond.

On the two sides were long, low buildings with large verandas
running their entire length, where the Princes and Ministers sat
when invited by Her Majesty to witness the play. Directly opposite
this stage was a spacious building, containing three large rooms,
which was used exclusively by Her Majesty. The floor was raised
about ten feet above the ground, which brought it on a level with
the stage. Large glass windows ran along in front, so made that
they could be removed in the summer and replaced with pale blue
gauze screens. Two of these rooms were used as sitting rooms and
the third, the one on the right, she used as a bedroom, and it had
a long couch running across the front, on which she used to sit or
lie according to her mood. This day she invited us to go to this
room with her. Later I was told that she would very often come to
this room, look at the play for a while and then take her siesta.
She could certainly sleep soundly, for the din and noise did not
disturb her in the least. If any of my readers have ever been to a
Chinese theatre, they can well imagine how difficult it would be to
woo the God of Sleep in such a pandemonium.

As soon as we were in this bedroom the play commenced. It was a
religious play called "The Empress of Heaven's Party or Feast to
all the Buddhist Priests to eat her famous peaches and drink her
best wine." This party or feast is given on the third day of the
third moon of each year.

The first act opens with a Buddhist Priest, dressed in a yellow
coat robe with a red scarf draped over his left shoulder,
descending in a cloud from Heaven to invite all the priests to this
party. I was very much surprised to see this actor apparently
suspended in the air and actually floating on this cloud, which was
made of cotton. The clever way in which they moved the scenery,
etc., was most interesting, and before the play was finished I
concluded that any theatre manager could well take lessons from
these people; and it was all done without the slightest bit of
machinery.

As this Buddhist Priest was descending, a large pagoda began to
slowly rise from the center of the stage in which was a buddha
singing and holding an incense burner in front of him. Then four
other smaller pagodas slowly rose from the four corners of the
stage, each containing a buddha the same as the first. When the
first Buddhist Priest had descended, the five buddhas came out of
the pagodas, which immediately disappeared, and walked about the
stage, still singing. Gradually from the wing came numbers of
buddhas singing until the stage was full, and they all formed into
a ring. Then I saw a large lotus flower, made of pink silk, and two
large green leaves appearing from the bottom of the stage, and as
it rose the petals and leaves gradually opened and I saw a
beautiful lady buddha (Goddess of Mercy) dressed all in white silk,
with a white hood on her head, standing in the center of this
flower. As the leaves opened I saw a girl and a boy in the center
of them. When the petals of the lotus flower were wide open this
lady buddha began to gradually ascend herself, and as she ascended,
the petals closed until she seemed to be standing on a lotus bud.
The girl standing in the leaf on the Goddess' right side held a
bottle made of jade and a willow branch. The legend of this is that
if the Goddess dips the willow branch into the jade bottle and
spreads it over a dead person it will bring the person to life. The
boy and the girl are the two attendants of the buddha.

Finally the three came down from the flower and leaves and
joined the rest of the buddhas. Then the Empress of Heaven came, a
good old lady with snow-white hair, dressed from head to foot in
Imperial yellow, followed by many attendants, and ascended the
throne, which was in the center of the stage, and said: "We will go
to the banquet hall." This ended the first scene.

The second scene opened with tables set for the feast to be
given by the Empress of Heaven. These tables were loaded down with
peaches and wine and four attendants guarding them. Suddenly a bee
came buzzing near and scattered a powder under the nostrils of the
attendants, which made them sleepy. When they had fallen asleep,
this bee transformed itself into a big monkey and this monkey ate
all the peaches and drank all the wine. As soon as he had finished
he disappeared.

A blast of trumpets announced the coming of the Empress of
Heaven and she soon arrived accompanied by all the Buddhist Priests
and their attendants. When the Empress of Heaven saw all the
peaches and wine had disappeared, she woke the attendants and asked
them why they were asleep and where the peaches and wine had gone.
They said that they did not know, that they were waiting for her to
come and fell asleep. Then one of the guests suggested that she
should find out what had become of the feast, and attendants were
sent out to the guard to find out from the soldiers if anyone had
gone out of the gate recently. Before the messenger had time to
return, the Guard of Heaven came and informed the Empress that a
big monkey, who was very drunk and carrying a big stick, had just
gone out of the gate. When she was told this, she ordered the
soldiers of heaven and several buddhas to go and find him at his
place. It seems that this monkey had originally been made from a
piece of stone and lived in a large hole in a mountain on the
earth. He was endowed with supernatural powers and could walk on
the clouds. He was allowed to come to heaven and the Empress of
Heaven gave him a position looking after the Imperial orchards.

When they got to his place on the earth, they found that he had
taken some of the peaches with him and he, with other monkeys, was
having a feast. The soldiers challenged him to come out and fight.
He immediately accepted this challenge, but the soldiers could do
nothing with him. He pulled the hair out of his coat and
transformed each hair into a little monkey and each monkey had an
iron rod in its hand. He himself had a special iron rod, which had
been given to him by the King of Sea Dragons. This rod he could
make any size he wanted from a needle to a crowbar.

Among the buddhas who had gone with the soldiers was one named
Erh Lang Yeh, who was the most powerful of them all and had three
eyes. This buddha had a dog which was very powerful and he told the
dog to bite this monkey, which he did, and the monkey fell down and
they caught him and brought him up to heaven. When they got there
the Empress of Heaven ordered that he should be handed to Lao Chun,
an old taoist god, and that he should burn him in his incense
burner. The incense burner was very large, and when they took the
monkey to him he placed him inside this burner and watched him very
carefully to see that he did not get out. After he had watched for
a long time he thought the monkey must be dead and went out for a
few minutes. The monkey, however, was not dead and as soon as Lao
Chun went out, he escaped and stole some golden pills which Lao
Chun kept in a gourd and went back to his hole in the mountains.
These pills were very powerful and if one of them were eaten it
would give eternal life, and the monkey knew this. The monkey ate
one and it tasted good and he gave the little monkeys some. When
Lao Chun came back and found both the monkey and the pills gone he
went and informed the Empress of Heaven. This ended the second
scene.

The third scene opened with the buddhas and soldiers at the
monkey's place in the mountains and they again asked him to come
out and fight. The monkey said: "What! Coming again?" and laughed
at them. They started to fight again, but he was so strong they
could not get the best of him. Even the dog who had bit him before
was powerless this time, and they finally gave it up and returned
to heaven and told the Empress of Heaven that they could not
capture him the second time, as he was too strong. Then the Empress
of Heaven called a little god about fifteen years old by the name
of Neur Cha, who had supernatural powers, and told him to go down
to earth to the monkey's place and see if he could finish him. This
god was made of lotus flowers and leaves, that is, his bones were
made of flowers and his flesh made of leaves and he could transform
himself into anything that he wished. When Neur Cha got to the
monkey's place and the monkey saw him, he said: "What! A little boy
like you come to fight me? Well, if you think you can beat me, come
on," and the boy transformed himself into an immense man with three
heads and six arms. When the monkey saw this, he transformed
himself also into the same thing. When the little god saw that this
would not do, he transformed himself into a very big man and
started to take the monkey, but the monkey transformed himself into
a very large sword and cut this man into two pieces. The little god
again transformed himself into fire to burn the monkey, but the
monkey transformed himself into water and put the fire out. Again
the little god transformed himself, this time into a very fierce
lion, but the monkey transformed himself into a big net to catch
the lion. So this little god, seeing that he could not get the best
of the monkey, gave it up and went back to heaven, and told the
Empress of Heaven that the monkey was too strong for him. The
Empress of Heaven was in despair, so she sent for Ju Li, an old
ancestor of the buddhas, who was the all-powerful one of them all;
and Kuan Yin, Goddess of Mercy, and sent them down to the monkey's
place to see if they could capture him. When they arrived at the
hole in the mountain the monkey came out and looked at Ju Li, but
did not say a word, as he knew who this god was. This god pointed a
finger at him and he knelt down and submitted. Ju Li said: "Come
with me," and took the monkey and put him under another mountain
and told him he would have to stay there until he promised he would
be good. Ju Li said: "You stay here until one day I lift this
mountain up for you to come out to go with a Buddhist Priest to the
West side of heaven and demand the prayer books that are kept
there. You will have to suffer a great deal on the way and face
many dangers, but if you come back with this Buddhist Priest and
the prayer books, by that time your savage temper will be gone and
you will be put in a nice place in heaven and enjoy life forever
afterwards."

This finished the play, which was very interesting, and I
enjoyed it from beginning to end. It was acted very cleverly and
quite realistic, and I was very much surprised to know that the
eunuchs could act so well. Her Majesty told us that the scenery was
all painted by the eunuchs and that she had taught them about all
they knew. Unlike most theatres in China, it had a curtain which
was closed between the acts, also wing slides and drop scenes. Her
Majesty had never seen a foreign theatre and I could not understand
where she got all her ideas from. She was very fond of reading
religious books and fairy tales, and wrote them into plays and
staged them herself, and was extremely proud of her
achievement.

Her Majesty sat talking, we standing, for some little time and
she asked me if I understood the play, and I told her that I did
and she seemed quite pleased. Then she said in such a charming way:
"Oh! I am so interested in talking with you that I have forgotten
to order my lunch. Are you hungry? Could you get Chinese food when
you were abroad, and were you homesick? I know I would be if I left
my own country for so long a time; but the reason why you were
abroad so long was not your fault. It was my order that sent Yu
Keng to Paris and I am not a bit sorry, for you see how much you
can help me now, and I am proud of you and will show you to the
foreigners that they may see our Manchu ladies can speak other
languages than their own." While she was talking I noticed that the
eunuchs were laying three large tables with nice white table
cloths, and I could see a number of other eunuchs standing in the
courtyard with boxes of food. These boxes or trays are made of wood
painted yellow and are large enough to hold four small and two
large bowls of food. After the tables were laid ready, the eunuchs
outside formed themselves into a double line from the courtyard to
a little gate running into another courtyard and passed these trays
from one to the other up to the entrance of the room, where they
were taken by four nicely dressed eunuchs and placed on the
tables.

It seems that it was a habit of Her Majesty to take her meals
wherever she happened to be, so that there was no particular place
that she used as a dining room. I should also mention that these
bowls were of Imperial yellow with silver covers. Some were
ornamented with green dragons and some with the Chinese character
Shou (Long Life).

There were about one hundred and fifty different kinds of food,
for I counted them. They were placed in long rows, one row of large
bowls and one row of small plates, and then another row of small
bowls, and so on. As the setting of the tables was going on, two
Court ladies came into the bedroom, each carrying a large yellow
box. I was very much surprised to see Court ladies doing this kind
of work and I said to myself, if I come here will I have to do this
sort of thing? Although these boxes appeared to be quite heavy,
they brought them in very gracefully. Two small tables were placed
in front of Her Majesty, then they opened the boxes and placed a
number of very cute plates containing all sorts of sweets, lotus
flower seeds, dried and cooked with sugar, watermelon seeds,
walnuts cooked in different ways, and fruits of the season cut and
sliced. As these plates were being placed on the tables Her Majesty
said that she liked these dainties better than meat and gave us
some and told us to make ourselves at home. We thanked her for her
kindness and enjoyed them very much. I noticed that she ate quite a
quantity from the different plates and wondered how she would be
able to eat her lunch. When she had finished, two of the Court
ladies came and took the plates away and Her Majesty told us that
she always gave what was left to the Court ladies after she had
finished eating.

After this a eunuch came in carrying a cup of tea. This tea cup
was made of pure white jade and the saucer and cover was of solid
gold. Then another eunuch came in carrying a silver tray on which
were two jade cups similar to the others, one containing
honeysuckle flowers and the other rose petals. He also brought a
pair of gold chopsticks. They both knelt on the floor in front of
Her Majesty and held the trays up so that she could reach them. She
took the golden cover off of the cup containing tea and took some
of the honeysuckle flowers and placed them in the tea. While she
was doing this and sipping the tea, she was telling how fond she
was of flowers and what a delicate flavor they gave to the tea.
Then she said: "I will let you taste some of my tea and see if you
like it," and ordered one of the eunuchs to bring us some tea, the
same as she was drinking. When it came, she put some of the
honeysuckle flowers in the cup for us and watched us drink it. It
was the most delicious tea I had ever tasted and the putting of
flowers in it gave it an extremely delicate flavour.